Love/Hate

I've mentioned a few times that I'm reading Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles in between bouts of research and editing, and I'm up to book three - about 2/3 through, The Disorderly Knights. Francis Crawford of Lymond makes me so flipping angry. And also I care deeply that he gets enough sleep, and remembers to eat, and gets little glimmers of kindness from those few who'll offer it. (Kate Somerville is my fave). 

This is characterization. This is creating a figure so real, so flawed, so hopelessly human that you in turns love and loathe him. You can disapprove of his actions in the strongest way possible, and still want to know what happens - still care about him. Yesterday morning, I sat down to read for a few minutes with my coffee, and three pages in, Lymond did something that infuriated me so deeply that I shut the book, set it aside, and glared into the middle distance for a good three minutes. Then I picked the book back up and continued. 

I then reminded myself that in the first twenty pages of Price of Angels, Michael breaks a woman's neck. Reminded myself that Nikita enters the Kremlin, all in black, covered in blood during his first appearance in White Wolf. 

I write the kinds of characters that you loathe - but hopefully love - too. 

I've said before, and I'll say again here: when it comes to writing romantic relationships, I'm trying to paint the involved characters as attractive to one another, but not necessarily to the audience. I design the characters as well-matched. They love each other, warts and all; the hope is then that the audience is invested in their love for one another...even if the audience members can't necessarily picture themselves as being in love with either party. 

For instance, none of the male characters in the Dartmoor series are to my personal taste romance-wise; but their wives love them. They are, by definition as criminals of choice, not good men, but they have done some good. 

Nikita did unspeakable things as a Chekist...but it was a choice between being the one inflicting pain, or receiving it. His noble intentions don't make up for all the bad he's done, but it does show us what lies in his heart. 

I suppose my question is this: does a character have to live up to a reader's personal moral standards in order to be loved? Must needs their actions align perfectly with our own in order for us to feel empathetic toward them? Is a book "bad" because some of its characters have done bad things? 

Personally, I come down on the side that, even if characters infuriate me at moments, if they are deeply-fleshed out, and realistically drawn, those infuriating moments make the novel interesting. It makes me think, and ask questions, and debate things. 

Do romantic storylines have a responsibility to showcase only that which is ideal? And if so...who is to lay out the definitive ideal to which all should adhere?